Find Religion

Lee National Denim Day® is one of the largest single-day fundraisers for breast cancer. In October, Lee Jeans encourages millions of people nationwide to slip into their favorite jeans and make a $5 donation to support the fight against breast cancer.

This year, I’m getting involved as a 451 Press Blogger. Of course, putting on jeans is actually dressing up, since bloggers often wear pjs or sweats, but instead I’ll be “comfortable” on my blog - instead of writing about religion for the day, I’ll write about another topic I really, really enjoy. You’ll have to “tune in” on October 5 to see what topic I choose!

I hope you’ll help me in raising money to reach my goal of $1000. If you’re a blogger, you can feel free to “wear jeans” on your blog for a day too!

To donate through my team online or join the team, go to my team page here. If you’re a blogger and going to participate, let me know and I’ll add you to the page.

Help Find Religion and 451 Press fight breast cancer. Thank you for your donation.

Dr. Nikhat Qureshi says that providing free health care is something that runs in her family.

Muslims usually get a bad rap for being unwelcoming to other religions, but many of that faith are working hard to overcome that stereotype. The Al-Shifa clinic, which you can read about here, is run by the physicians of the Muslim Community Center for Human Services, but it doesn’t ban patients from non-Abrahamic religions. Everyone is welcome.

After all, missionary and volunteer work is a part of Islam and most other religions.

It’s important for news stories like this to continue to be a part of our daily understanding of the world. Too often, only the bad stories are reported, leavings an ugly shade of light casted on our overall perception of religion. However, there is still a lot of great stuff happening in the world!

Charity is an important part of many religions, and whether you believe in God or not, charity work can be very rewarding. Here are some celebrities who are doing their part to help the world be attending some great charity events and donating money:

Byron Zanos and Gavin Degraw at the 4th Annual WPLJ vs. Channel 7 Charity Softball Game

Jenny McCarthy poses for photos during her “Big Deal” charity fundraiser to benefit “Early Childhood Partial Hospitalization Program at UCLA” at the Playboy Club at the Palms Hotel and Casino Resort on August 4, 2007 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Actor Rex Lee and Actress Jodi Lynn O’Keefe attend Los Angeles Confidential Magazine and French Connection’s summer beach party and clambake to benefit the Art of Elysium at the French Connection Malibu beach house.

Like sports? How about food? One of 451 Press’ own bloggers, Dominick Evans at All Sports Report, is participating in a blog-a-thon and wants sponsors and readers. Also participating is his partner, Ashtyn Evans, will also be participating. You can find her blog at Watching Food TV.

Read on to find out how it works. Muscular Dystrophy is a medical conditions that affects thousands of people, including Dominick himself. If you can’t give money, at least stop by on that day to leave comments of support!

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I write for a number of blogs and online newsletters, but rarely do they overlap in subject matter. However, today on my Bravo blog, I just had to take a minute to talk about last night’s episode of Kathy Griffin: My Life of the D-List and her hosting the Gay Porn Awards. How does this relate to religion? Well, the man pictured above said the following in his speech:

“As far as I am concerned, everyone one of you in the gay porn industry is doing God’s work.”

Huh?

Ok, seriously, that was so funny at the time, that it made me laugh out loud. God’s work is gay porn. Only in America.

But really, what the heck did that guy mean? I’m not bashing the gay community…it’s not gay porn in particular that had me wondering how it can be related to God. No, it’s just porn.

Now, we didn’t get the whole clip of the speech–we only got that little sentence. So, I don’t know. Maybe the man was talking about how gay porn is promoting tolerance. Or maybe he was talking about how gay porn is empowering for homosexuals. In any case, aren’t there better ways to do those things than watching porn?

Gay porn is not God’s work. If you enjoy to use this media in your home, that’s your private business. However, I think that we justify a lot of things we do in our everyday lives as “good,” just because they have a few good results (such as gay porn empowering homosexuals, etc). That doesn’t mean that these things are good! If you steal office supplies at work to donate to your church’s Sunday school, it doesn’t mean that stealing is God’s work. It means that you’ve not looked at all your options. Instead, why not spend time approaching businesses for paint and paper donations? Instead of promoting pornography, why not attend a gay pride rally or parade to show your support of this community?

I mean…c’mon people.

gay, gay porn, gay pride, homosexual, homosexuality, Kathy Griffin, My life on the d-list, Bravo

A few final thoughts from Hillary. Thanks for sharing your experiences with us, hun!

Hello Everyone!!!

Hillary

…a continuation of Hillary’s adventures in part 1 and part 2.

Hello Everyone!

So it’s week two here in Uganda. I definitely love every bit of Africa; the slow pace, the people, the bright colors, and the music. I have so many funny stories to share. But before I do that, here are some prayer requests I have. Two of the toddlers have fallen on rocks and pushed most of their front teeth up into their gums. Sounds crazy? I know… I’m not sure how little children’s teeth can move so far up into their gums just by falling hard, but after seeing it with my own eyes, I am now a believer. Their isn’t really dental services around here and if there are and I don’t know about them the children won’t be receiving any care. So please just pray that their mouths will heal fast and they won’t get any infections in it. (Which will be a miracle since they don’t brush their teeth ever!) Also, two boys have gotten some weird rash/cut on their genital area and right now no-one is sure how or what is causing this. The boys just cry all day and you can see how much pain their in and yet the people here really don’t know what to do about it. Arnold, a little toddler who has the cutest face ever and whos head is shaped like a bicycle helmet (no joke!) is one of them who has this problem. The cutest thing about Arnolds head is that since the orphanage shaves all the boys heads every month Arnold can’t even hide his funny shaped noggin behind any hair J Also, one of the mama’s had a metal clothesline break and hit her eye so she will need prayer as her eye is recovering from that incident. Also keep praying for our health because other volunteers have gotten malaria recently and some other weird sicknesses that no-one diagnosis over here. If you get sick you go to the clinic and they never tell you what you have they just give you some weird medicine and tell you to take it. So I’m really hoping I don’t have to go to the clinic while being here. I’ve gotten quite a few mosquito bites, but none that have led into malaria. (Praise God!)

Here are some funny stories that have happened while being here.

Two days ago, George (my favorite little boy who’s 1 ½ years old) was standing by me as he was waiting for his bath and all of a sudden I felt this warm sensation on my bare foot. Little George thought it would be hilarious to pee on Auntie Hillary’s foot and then when I asked him if he was going su su (Ugandan word for pee) he just started laughing.

Peter a Ugandan man who helps out at the orphanage brought me two x-rays and said this to me in English. “We use these to make fine art� Hahaha in the midst of me trying to ask him if these were important and what he wanted me to do with them, it turns out he wanted me to cut things out of the x-rays to make stencils so that we could put it over paper and let the children paint over them to have shapes come out on the paper underneath. I have now learned a new tool for teaching using old x-rays!

When I was walking home one night, it was just about dusk and there were these 3 cows just standing in the middle of the road. I kept trying to dodge the one with big horns and whenever I walked to one side of the road one of the cows would run across and so we weaved in and out of each other for about 15 minutes as I was walking. Something that you definitely wouldn’t have happen to you everyday in America.

Also, in Uganda whenever you go to shake someone’s hand you have to do this really cool handshake. You go to shake their hand normally then you both move your hands up and then you shake again normally. It’s pretty funny, but I’ll teach you all when I come back!

As for me personally, this time with God has been really amazing. We have a prayer room in our house and I find myself spending more and more time there. God is teaching me a lot about who he’s made me to be, where he wants me to go in life, and how I need to be patient and wait on a lot of things. He’s also teaching me how when I make mistakes he still loves me and hasn’t given up. I really do appreciate everyone’s emails and they definitely make me feel very loved and supported back home so keep them coming!

I hope you are all enjoying America as much as I am enjoying this beautiful country and all the beautiful things in it!

XOXO
Hillary J

Africa, missionary, God, letters, letters from Africa, Uganda, African missionary

Every once in awhile, you have the chance to be friends with someone who truly is an inspiration and who can make you feel better about your day, no matter how blue you feel. When I was in kindergarten (yep–a long time ago!), I met Hillary, and we stayed friends all through school. The picture to the left is from high school chemistry class (woah, we’re young!). Hillary is on the right, with the green container. What I remember most is that if someone was having a bad day, Hillary would try to make them laugh, even if it required doing something silly or embarrassing. She is the type of person that just lit up a room.

Hillary is now trying to light up the world. She ended up going to a Christina college in Colorado (I live in Pennsylvania), so we didn’t keep as close as some of my other friends who close schools nearby, but we did catch up from time to time, and what she did while in college was amazing. Hillary joined a number of missionary trips, traveling to places as far away as Romania to spread God’s word.

Today, Hillary is in Africa on another missionary trip. Please pray for her as she works to bring some of God’s love into the lives of the children there. She gave me permission to share with you all some of her emails, so you can read for yourselves what she is doing and what Africa is like:

Email Subject: IM IN AFRICA AND ALIVE
Email Body: HAHAHA…. Thought that subject line was pretty good. So just to warn you, the capitalization button on my computer is broke so i wont be capitalizing any of my letters during this email becuase i have to keep putting the caps lock button on and taking it off. so here’s the latest low down on my life.

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I’m Christian, and so every weekend I’d like to given anyone who is willing to take it a “homework” assignment. They’ll be Christian in nature, but you can use these as a starting point to reflect you own religious beliefs. Stop back every Friday for your homework!

This weekend’s homework: Get charitable!

Bible verses: “”Little children, let us love, neither in word nor with the tongue, but in deed and truth.” -1 John 3:18

“Become doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves with false reasoning. For if anyone is a hearer of the word, and not a doer, this one is like a man looking at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself, and off he goes and immediately forgets what sort of man he is. But he who peers into the perfect law that belongs to freedom and who persists in it, this man, because he has become, not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, will be happy in his doing it.” - James 1:22-25

Devotional: We are taught that we cannot get to heaven through good works alone. However, charity is a rewarding part of life, and like most of us, I have recently found myself fairly busy with other obligations and, in effect, haven’t had “time” for charity. We need to make time. Whether it’s donating money to a local organization or volunteering yourself for a day, having charity in your life is important.

Last Black Friday, I did a special on charities where you could donate your money. Here’s the link.

Need even more inspiration? A number of celebrities make time in their lives, which are often busier than mine or yours, for charity. Here are just a few examples:

Jason Alexander at the Celebrity Grand Slam Paddle Jam to benefit St. Jude’s (presented by Dippin’ Dots)

Nick Lachey and Vanessa Minnillo at the Candie’s Foundatino 4th Annual “Event to Prevent” Benefit

Sarah Ferguson visits the Ronald McDonald House

Rihanna at the Links for Life Gala to benefit DKMS and the Bone Marrow Foundation

Weekend homework, Christianity, charity, Rihanna, Sarah Ferguson, Fergie, Nick Lachey, Vanessa Minnillo, Jason Alexander

Some recent news:

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - A historic Catholic church in New Orleans, a wellspring of jazz and other riches of African-American culture that has fallen on hard times, is facing down a deadline for survival set by its archbishop.
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St. Augustine Church was packed and rocking with brass bands and tambourine-shaking choir singers at a jazz Mass on Sunday — an expression of members’ hope and nonmembers’ support as the 166-year-old parish scrambles to meet terms set by Archbishop Alfred Hughes for a reprieve from closure.

Damages from Katrina are still a problem in may sections of the southern states. Unless they can raise enough money and membership, the church will have to close, which is a real shame. Even if you aren’t religious, you can appreciate the architecture and historical significance of the church. Unfortunately, lots of church are in similar situations, and many are not even in Katrina-stricken areas. Supporting your local church, whether you are a member or not, it important to helpings churches stay active and beautiful in our communities.

church, charity, Katrina

Jermain Jackson, who is a brother to Michael and Janet, has recently shown interest in supporting Muslim Aid, an organization that gives money to orphanages around the world. Jackson is also known by his Muslim name, Abdul Aziz, and has said that it was his religion that helped him win runner-up votes for staying calm during his participation in Celebrity Big Brother. Hamid Azad, the head of overseas aid, thanked Jackson for his upcoming support during a press conference.

Muslim Aid, Jermain Jackson, Jackson, Muslim, Islam, charity, Big Brother

I’m a big fan of showing God’s love through charity, and it makes me happy to see celebrities doing the same. If you’re in Miami right now, check out the Ultimate VIP Lounge for charity, with proceeds to benefit UNICEF.

March 22 Ultimate VIP lounge with Sexonwax feat. Desyn Masiello, Omid 16B and Demi with special guest Hernan Cattaneo

March 23 Ultimate VIP lounge with Sander Van Doorn, D:Fuse and special guest DJs TBA

March 24 Ultimate VIP lounge with Club Class feat. Paolo Mojo and special guest DJs TBA

March 25 Ultimate VIP lounge with some of the top DJs at the WMC 2007

Charity, God, God’s Love, religion, DJ Sasha, Ultimate VIP lounge